There was a second's silence, and in it they heard footsteps hurrying along the corridor. The quadrangle was not a secluded spot even at its quietest. Frances fumbled at the door-knob.
"Let me open it for you!"
His hand came upon hers in the dusk, held it closely, tightly. The shock of the joy of its touch, the sound of her hurried breath went to his head. He followed her into the hall and shut the door behind him leaning against it, looming masterfully against its darkness. The light from the globe overhead cast a white circle on the polished floor; they were outside it. Beyond the half-drawn portière they glimpsed the professor, back towards them.
Lawson dared say no word, he only stood a second, a minute, caressing her with a long look from head to foot, and with the look of loving, was mixed joyous delighted triumph; then he opened the door softly and was gone out into the darkness.
Frances drew a shivering sigh, as she went slowly into the library. A vague uneasiness possessed her. She dreaded even the thought of seeing him again. Next afternoon she was off for a hard ride the other way from the practice grounds. Lawson, wandering aimlessly about the quadrangle at twilight, saw her hurrying up the corridor holding her habit tightly about her. He hastened across to find a closed door and blank windows. Inside, Frances was telephoning for a boy to take Starlight to the stables and then making a gay pretence of weariness and hunger to Susan. So for a day or two.
When they met again Lawson was icy with anger. Frances had avoided the practice grounds, but the fascination of the game overcame her. She drove up at last, and sat looking down on the players below.
Lawson, for some reason, was not one of them. Frances did not see him at first, but he, sitting on the last of the steps sunken in the terrace, was chaffing the players and talking lightly to the men about him. He turned at the sound of wheels, and saw her, as she pulled up, sharply silhouetted against the hill-slope beyond. He was elaborately unconscious of her. By and by the Beauty drove in behind Frances. Lawson was at her side in an instant, doffing his cap to Frances as he passed her. She sat quite still, disdaining to turn her head at the sound of the gay voices and laughter behind her, and watched the practice below without seeing a point.
Other carriages had passed in before her and on the side; she was held prisoner to the end of the hour. Then Lawson, going by as she held Starlight's rein taut and looked to left and right for chance of escape, stopped suddenly at the wheel. He had not intended it. It was the look on her face impelled him. Had it been either sorrowful or scornful he would have read her mood and passed her by; she was neither, and, being puzzled, he paused.
"Good play!" he began, feeling for an opening to the conversation.